Backbench MPs have gone on more than £1.5m of trips with all expenses paid by foreign governments, pressure groups and companies in little over two years, The Independent can reveal. Several MPs have spent months out of the country on foreign trips, sometimes while Parliament is sitting, while many of those funding the visits have a vested interest in lobbying MPs.

After the trips, a significant number of MPs have made speeches in the House of Commons supporting the political positions of the governments and countries they have visited.

And I was under the impression that MPs were supposed to represent their constituents, not foreign powers and tax-dodging multinationals. Silly me.

UK MPs wonder why their people have so little trust in them? Its because of shit like this. They give every impression of being for sale to the highest bidder. And by doing so, they undermine not only their own legitimacy, but the UK's democracy.